Monthly Reports

PRIME MINISTER

Report from the e-Minister and e-Envoy - 4^th March 2002

Introduction

This is our second monthly report on progress against the UK online strategy as set out in the UK online annual report published in December 2001. The strategy details how we are driving forward the programme of change to get individuals, businesses and Government online.

A detailed progress report on each of the commitments made in the Report was published on our website last month at www.e-envoy.gov.uk. This shows that of the 113 commitments announced, 108 are on track, 5 completed, and none are behind schedule.

Again, we focus on just a few issues in this monthly report. This report covers the following issues: Broadband, the Knowledge Network; progress of uk.online.gov.uk site; iDTV and local government.

Broadband

Over the last five months we, and in particular Douglas Alexander, have challenged BT to lower its broadband prices. Last week, BT Group's new CEO Ben Verwaayen rose to that challenge.

From April, BT intends to cut its wholesale monthly line rental for consumer connections from £25 to £14.75. This announcement is excellent news for consumers and businesses. OECD research has illustrated on a number of occasions that one of the most effective ways to boost demand for broadband is by lowering prices. This announcement has the potential to bring about a step change in broadband take-up. Independent consultants estimate that if these price cuts are passed onto consumers, as expected, then in three years time broadband take-up figures will be twice as high as if they weren't cut as aggressively.

It will, of course, be important for BT's prices to remain fair and not anti-competitive. Oftel has already begun the process of looking into BT's costs and pricing as a matter of urgency. At this stage though, it seems likely that Oftel will have no difficulty with the BT price, as they already believed that a significant reduction was justified.

The Office of the e-Envoy is also continuing to drive forward its commitments from the UK online Annual Report.

In November, you tasked the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to investigate how the Public Sector can most effectively procure broadband. You will be pleased to know that this work is now well underway. The OGC are currently meeting with potential suppliers and public sector buyers to identify and evaluate a range of procurement options. The Office of the e-Envoy is supporting this work by working with departments on their demand for broadband services, and by analysing the likely impact of different procurement models on competition, and the wider availability of broadband.

Earlier this month, Douglas Alexander and the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) announced the appointment of former ICL Chief Executive, Keith Todd as chairman of the BSG. Mr Todd is taking forward a programme of work, focusing on broadband end-users and has set up five new task groups to look at broadband content, education, regulation, promotion and strategic implementation.

The Knowledge Network

Of particular significance this month is the fact that the OeE, together with its commercial partners, was recently the winner of a prestigious Europe-wide award for the best IT project of 2001, from the Management Consultants' Association. The project, which has been running since early 2000, has now started to show significant benefits to departments and their internal briefing capability, including your own office's Research On-Line system and the Briefing@DTI system. All other central departments now have this facility. The central repository of all departmental lines is gaining acceptance and growing in maturity, with departments beginning to release their material to the wider government audience. One of our current, key tasks is to build up this central repository.

We are the first Government in the world to achieve this joining together of briefing from all Government departments, in a common interactive system.

A number of pilot communities are at various stages of maturity. The largest of these is the Government Legal Services' intranet LION (Legal Information On-Line). This joins all Government lawyers with access to the Government Secure Intranet into a common workspace.

To supplement the technical work and business changes underway, the OeE, together with Centre for Management and Policy Studies and Performance and Innovation Unit, is drawing up a Knowledge Management Policy Framework. This will provide a framework for all areas of knowledge management. It will draw together examples of good practice; a toolkit of resources that can be used for the development of knowledge management systems; and process and change management issues to address the human element of the introduction of these types of systems.

ukonline.gov.uk

One month on from unveiling major changes on ukonline.gov.uk, a solid pattern of consistent use is emerging. Publicity has been deliberately held back to allow for teething troubles, although there have been very few of these. Even without any fanfare, the site is attracting a rising average of nearly 8,000 visits per day, with no evidence of drop off.

New content is being added in a much more responsive and efficient way, with a good volume of new material already published and much more in the pipeline showing the benefits of taking back control of the publication process via the new infrastructure.

iDTV

A new team has been created within the Office of the e-Envoy e-Communications team that is responsible for the Cross Platform Delivery Project. This project aims to get Government content across a range of Digital platforms, effectively expanding the provision of Government services beyond the current Internet channel - ukonline.gov.uk. This will include digital TV, Kiosks, Mobile Communications and Video.

In December 2001 we were approached by Sky Active to take part in a technology pilot using their Interactive Advertising Browser. Using the red interactive button on the end frame of the UK online commercial on Sky in January 2002, viewers were able to access further UK online Campaign information delivered in WML. The pilot was a success and we are currently developing a service to trial our UK online content across a range of DTV platforms. We are in talks with platform providers including Sky, NTL, Telewest and ITV Digital. We aim to launch a trial service in March/April 2002.

We are also working with the DTI to deliver Government content to Kiosks in Post Offices nationwide.

Local Government

We are encouraging and supporting the production by DTLR of a national e-local government strategy. This will recognise both the importance of local government to the national e-agenda, and the Local Government White Paper ambitions to formulate agreed central local priorities for local service delivery; and encourage community cohesion and leadership. It will also map and help local authorities to connect to OeE priorities and programmes. The strategy will set out plans for making effective use of existing and future funds to support a programme of deliverables for local government, and ensure sustained implementation of electronic government strategies which have already been drawn up by all authorities. The aim is to make a real difference to local service delivery, local governance and national and local partnership working

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